


Between Breaths

by FangirlKats



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drabble, Fluff and Angst, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Insecure Lance (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 10:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13657077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangirlKats/pseuds/FangirlKats
Summary: The room was eerily quiet, despite the two boys sat on the floor. When people describe silence they tend to talk about it as if it were a couch. Comfortable or uncomfortable.But, Lance thought, there were a lot of ways of describing silence. There was the silence before the first firework crossed the night sky, filled with excitement, the kind that made your heart race and your cheeks flush and your eyes fill with unshed tears.There was also the silence of an empty place, which told stories of the people that had come and gone before, of love stories and laughter and loss and pain.





	Between Breaths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abnormpessimist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abnormpessimist/gifts).



> This is dedicated to my lovely friend @abnormpessimist
> 
> Ceriann, this is incredibly late and not even what I was going to get you in the first place but I hope you enjoy it. Love you so much<3

The room was eerily quiet, despite the two boys sat on the floor. When people describe silence they tend to talk about it as if it were a couch. Comfortable or uncomfortable. 

But, Lance thought, there were a lot of ways of describing silence. There was the silence before the first firework crossed the night sky, filled with excitement, the kind that made your heart race and your cheeks flush and your eyes fill with unshed tears. There was also the silence of an empty place, which told stories of the people that had come and gone before, of love stories and laughter and loss and pain.

And then there was whatever this was. But as he let his head hung low between his shoulders, as if to shield himself, Lance couldn't exactly put a name to this silence. How do you describe the silence of two boys who sit alone in the dark? Two boys whose place in the universe was a mystery while being pillars of a revolution? Two boys who said everything by being quiet because they feared that putting a name on something would only risk its existence?

So he sat there, looking down, alternating between looking at his hands (soft, scarred, trembling) and looking at Keith's (dry, calloused, shaking), and looked for better metaphors to explain the situation. Anything to avoid thinking about the real reason they were both sat there in the dark. Or about how much he hated the space between their hands.

He risked a glance to his left and found that Keith's gaze was already on him. He felt his face burn, and was suddenly thankful for his dark complexion and the fact that the lights were off. Keith wasn't as lucky, his cheeks shining red even in the faint glow coming from the hallway. 

Lance thought it was lovely. 

He dropped his gaze back to his hands, trying and failing to act as if that quick glance had never happened. He did that a lot these days.

The universe must have decided that it wasn't his lucky day, because Keith decided to speak, and as much as Lance would kill for a single word for him out of those lips at any time, he wasn't excited about this particular talk.

"Will you..." Keith said, his voice hoarse both due to the amount of time he had spent in silence and a cold that wouldn't quite leave. "Will you just tell me what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." 

Lance almost tasted how the lie left his lips. Not that it would change anything. There were a series of unquestionable facts in Lance's life that nothing could ever alter, no matter how deep into space he got.

His mom's cooking was the best in the universe.

He was in love with space.

He could hide his feelings from anyone. Except Keith. 

Keith had come strong to Lance's life, breaking one of his facts and turning it into something new, which was fitting, since that's also what he had done with Lance.

"Please, just... tell me." And the thing is, not only was he unable to lie, he was also unable to say no. Because he was weak, and a coward, and a glance from those purple eyes made every molecule in his body ignite as if he was a living fire. Maybe he was exaggerating, but he had always been a bit of a drama queen.

He looked again, and Keith's gaze was almost enough to make him break down there and then. But he just didn't know. He didn't know how to explain. Because even if he told him why he was upset right at that moment, that wouldn't get rid of the issue. Because the issue was there was a darkness inside of Lance that only seemed to grow with every passing day. A darkness that seemed to follow his every movement, action, thought. A darkness that wouldn't let him sleep, or eat, or live. And as he took in Keith's appearance (hair on his face, tense shoulders, concerned eyes still on his), he couldn't find the words. How do you explain darkness to light?

So, because he couldn't explain it, but still couldn't say no to anything he asked, he made it simple. He took a piece of the darkness, the one that was louder in that moment and gave it a name. He cringed inwardly, thinking about how stupid it sounded, but it was still something. And something was always better than nothing.

"I just... I miss home, you know? Of course you know, I never shut up about it." He said, regretting speaking the moment he started, but unable to stop. "And it's not... it's okay, or whatever. I guess. It's just that I shouldn't... I don't get to complain, you know?"

"What?" Lance usually found Keith's confusion over anything amusing, but right now he would give anything for Keith to be a more receptive person. Or for himself to be better at explaining.

"I can't complain."

"Yes, you can." He said, moving slightly forward, like he couldn't wait for the words to reach Lance so he tried to move them along. "Of course you can complain. It's your feelings, they're... I... I don't know how to... Listen, you know I'm not good at this, but yes. You can."

Lance felt like he might scream. He wasn't sure exactly which one of his feelings was making him want to scream: maybe it was fear. Inadequacy. Pain. 

Love.

"No, I can't. You don't... get it." 

He felt the weight on his hand before he heard Keith moving. He felt himself gasp, and prayed to every deity of every planet that had ever existed that Keith wouldn't notice. Because if he did, Lance would have to explain. He'd have to explain how the mere idea of their skin touching kept him awake at night, looking at the ceiling. How he'd obsess so much he would sometimes hold his own hand. How he craved that simple touch more than anyone could ever imagine. 

He would have to tell Keith that if he moved his hand, if he let Lance intertwine their fingers like he so desperately wanted to, something would change. It would have to, because Lance wouldn't be able to deny him anything. He'd give him everything he had, for as long as he wanted it. Even if he didn't want it.

"Then explain. Explain it to me." 

But Keith didn't make any comments, probably too focused on what he thought was the problem. Probably not even realizing he had granted one of Lance's deepest wishes by simply holding his hand. So Lance kept talking, desperately trying to keep his voice in check.

"It's just... I wanted this, you know?" Maybe Lance was bracing himself for this, for the not being able to stop talking once he started. "Not the war, obviously, or the death of millions of people, just... The fame, the glory, the... I don't know, the attention. I've always dreamed of it. Ever since I was a kid." 

A breath.

"If we could go back, if we… if we had been asked before being sent into a space war, I would have said yes. Hunk wouldn't have, and Pidge is only here because of what happened to her family. Shiro would have said yes out of a sense of duty, and you would have followed him anywhere. But… none of you wanted to be heroes. I'm the only one who was stupid enough to want to be one, and now I'm here, and I'm stuck, and all I want is to be home, and be invisible again.”

“I have a hard time believing you were ever invisible.” He said it as a joke, probably trying to lighten the heavy mood that had settled between them. But there's something about the way he wouldn't get his eyes off Lance (he can tell, his gaze burns) that told him he meant it. He genuinely couldn't believe Lance had ever been invisible. Something took a hold of Lance's heart then, squeezing it, and it must have shown because as if on cue, Keith squeezed his hand. Lance looked back at them and tried not to get distracted by the sharp contrast of their skin tones.

"This coming from the guy who couldn't remember me even though we’d been in the same class for two years." He knew it was the wrong thing to say before the words had even left his mouth, but nothing could prepare him for the absolute emptiness he felt when Keith's hand left his. He recalled that once he had read somewhere that you could probably find the answer to all the mysteries in the universe in someone's hand. He thought that perhaps it was true, but no one ever talked about what to do when you lost the answers and found yourself even more disoriented that you'd been before. He curled in on himself, wishing that Pidge had managed to find a way to make humans disappear. Wishing, more than ever, that he really could go back to Earth, where being invisible had been easy to accomplish.

Keith was silent for a long time and Lance almost expected him to get up and leave. He wouldn't have blamed him, he didn't like his own company very much either. However, Keith stayed, and with him, the silence. Lance knew he had to break it. That sooner or later he would have to speak up. But if he was honest with himself -and he rarely was-, he was scared. Scared of what would happen if he broke the silence. If he broke the balance. Keith's hand and the emptiness it left behind would be considered sweet, compared to what could happen if he actually spoke, if he lay himself bare. If he opened his chest and showed exactly what was lurking inside.

He could feel himself starting to panic, a tightness around his throat that he desperately tried to swallow down, to no avail. His hands were trembling once again and he thought that if he didn't talk, he'd drown in his own thoughts. So he talked.

Or he tried.

"I..."

"I'm sorry." He had avoided looking at Keith for the majority of their conversation, too afraid of what he'd find if he actually let himself look, but he openly gaped at the boy in that moment. He couldn't see his face, his bangs hiding most of it from view as he looked down. His shoulders were tense, his hands clenched into fists. He was fully turned towards Lance, sat on his legs in a way that screamed anything but comfortable. Lance didn't know what to say.

"I... What? You're..." He gulped, the knot on his throat not quite going away. "You're sorry?"

"Yes."

If you had asked Lance what was going through his head in that moment, he wouldn't have known what to say. Words were usually his allies, he was always able to put his thoughts and emotions into them. He thought that even the feeling of a star exploding inside of you could be explained if you just were good enough with them. He usually was. Yet again, Keith managed to wreck the very basis of his existence. Take what was undoubtedly him and change it into something new. 

Lance was terrified of him. 

"I know... I know I hurt you." Keith apparently didn't care that Lance was about to bolt at any second, his feelings so overwhelming he kind of wanted to go back to drowning on his own, and just kept pushing. Always pushing. "When I didn't remember you. I didn't understand then, and I'm not sure I understand now but... I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't remember you. And I'm sorry I hurt you."

And as afraid as he was, as overwhelmingly terrified, he had to look. There was something about scary things, about beautiful things, that just drew you in. Like fire, like the depths of the sea. Like purple eyes shining with unshed tears in a sea of darkness. Keith was looking at him like that moment meant everything, like their whole relationship had developed like it had just so they could both be there in that moment, sat on the cold floor, with Keith apologizing for something that felt so far away to Lance that he could barely remember the man he was when it happened. It was like all the feelings he had been harbouring about the entire situation suddenly evaporated, and when he talked next, he said it knowing that it was probably the most truthful thing he'd ever said.

"It doesn't matter. It's fine."

He realized in that moment that it was. It really was. Who cared if Keith remembered him or not? Lance had been a kid back then. Both of them had been. And it wasn't that Lance felt like a grown up now, but he had changed. He must have if there was something in him that made Keith look at him like that, like there was nothing else in the universe that mattered more. Maybe nothing did.

"It matters." Keith said, as if he had read Lance's mind. "You matter."

Lance would be ashamed to admit that he felt a little breathless. The conversation had been a rollercoaster of emotions that he had frankly not been prepared for. And he still couldn't figure out where he wanted it to end, either. He just knew he had the most beautiful and precious thing in the universe next to him and he couldn't breathe and he was still thinking about their hands and how cold his were since Keith had stopped holding them.

"Lance, you know this is hard for me, but I want to help. I want to be there for you." Keith's tone was rushed, probably the adrenaline speaking. Then again, maybe it was only Lance with an adrenaline rush. "Please let me help. I'll do anything."

His deep sigh, paired with his words made something in Lance break. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew something, somewhere had fractured, because he felt a wave of warmth wash over him and in that moment, he forgot all about his worries, all about his insecurities, and his fear. All he could remember was that feeling. The one he spent so much time looking for. The feeling of warm hugs, and laughs, and the sea. The feeling of little adventures, and smiles, and home. The feeling he had only come close to replicating when he was with the boy next to him. 

"Anything?"

Falling wasn't scary, Lance thought. It only scared us because of the uncertainty of what would be waiting for us when we reached the ground. Because we looked down and all we could think about was the fact that maybe we'd fall and there'd be nothing to stop us from crashing into the ground, ending our existence once and for all. But sometimes, if you dared to jump, if you were just brave enough for one split second, you could find all the wonders of the universe in that fall. Lance had never been particularly brave.

"Anything."

But maybe Keith might be able to change another fundamental part of him.

"Can you hold my hand again?"

Lance expected the moment to last forever, but the truth is he didn't have time to even regret uttering the words before a warm hand draped over his like it had before. The reaction was instantaneous, his entire body lighting up from the inside with the simple touch. He didn't even feel embarrassed, even though his contentment was probably showing, he just felt... good. Grounded. Then he actually moved his hand and interlocked their fingers, squeezing Keith's hand tightly and he felt like he was whole. Like he'd been looking for something and he had found it and now life could finally begin. 

"Is this okay?"

Lance let out a soft chuckle, a breathless thing that couldn't possibly express his feelings. Keith had sounded worried, as if he hadn't just changed everything for the better, like he always did. His worry, his presence, his entire existence was intoxicating. Lance couldn't get enough of it. 

"It's perfect." In the time they had known each other, Lance had learned to appreciate the little things in Keith’s expressions. How he always managed to look angry even when he was just confused. How his eyes would shine every time he got passionate about something. How rare his smiles actually were. That’s why when Lance looked over and saw Keith smiling, a real smile, he could barely stop himself from grinning. 

"Good."

"I'm not a hero." He guessed it all came down to that. He’d dreamed of being a hero for so long. He had waited for the day where he’d get a chance to prove exactly how worthy of that title he was, but when he finally got it, he’d realized it just wasn’t true. He wasn’t meant to be the protagonist of the story, just a mere side character. He didn’t know how to deal with that knowledge. It weighed him down. And he was sure there was nothing the other boy could say to him that would change that. 

"Yes, you are." Keith said it with conviction, like it wasn’t debatable. Lance wondered if he had somehow managed to bullshit his way to Keith’s good side and was now forgiven for life. He wasn’t sure he liked the prospect. He really wasn’t anything special, no matter how much he tried to convince other people otherwise. Maybe with anyone else it wouldn’t have mattered, but this was Keith. Keith, who held entire galaxies inside his heart. Keith, who was fire and warmth in the coldness of space. Keith, who was the best pilot of his generation and had sacrificed himself for the greater good a million times but still managed to tell Lance he was a hero without a second thought.

Keith. Keith. Keith.

"But I... I'm scared. All the time." He knew he wasn’t making compelling arguments. He knew Keith was smart, and would probably find a way to turn around anything he’d throw at him, but he still wanted to try. Because he had already jumped once, and whatever came next would be different and new and he didn’t want Keith to regret it. 

"Welcome to the club." Keith said with a snort, squeezing Lance’s hand and looking up at the ceiling. He’d changed his position since they’d started holding hands, and he rest his chin on his knees where they were pressed against his chest. He looked small, but Lance didn’t think it made him weak. Almost the opposite. Something in the way he held himself, even when he was being vulnerable struck Lance as strong. He had to admit he was almost jealous of that ability. 

He almost forgot he was supposed to be trying to convince Keith of something, lost as he was in his thoughts, but it didn’t take him long to pick up where he’d left off.

"And I'm stupid, and I make mistakes."

"You're not stupid, you're just a kid.” His voice grew softer then, and Lance wouldn’t have been able to hear him if it wasn’t for the absolute silence in the room. “We all are."

It struck Lance then that they were in the middle of a war. It wasn’t that he had forgotten, it was impossible to, but sometimes he got lost in his head so much that when he came back to reality he had to do a double check. They were at war. A war none of them had signed up for, a war they were all scared to participate on. A war they couldn’t live with or without. A war they shouldn’t have to fight, yet had no option but do so. 

And Keith was right, they were all kids. Even Shiro. Even Allura. The things you’ve lived through don’t make you age up magically. They were just a bunch of children playing God, but there was no one else to play the part, so there was nothing they could do. Lance didn’t know why, but that made him feel better. The fact that maybe it wasn’t that he wasn’t good enough, maybe their situation was too big. For all of them.

"When did you become so mature?"

"Somewhere between joining a space war and finding out I'm half alien, I'm sure."

They both laughed, and for a moment, they weren’t Lance and Keith, defenders of the universe. They were just Lance and Keith, teenage boys. The impossibility of their situation, mixed with all the pent up feelings they’d been repressing made the whole conversation really funny, for some reason neither of them could explain. They laughed for a long time, holding their stomachs as tears run down their faces. Their hands never separated, though. 

When they finally settled, it was as if a weight had been lifted from the room. Even the darkness seemed less all-encompassing. 

"Better?"

Lance tried to downplay how much better he actually felt, although Keith could clearly see through him. 

"A little."

"Is there anything else I can do? Preferably not with words. I'm not good with those." Now Lance liked to believe he had some kind of control over himself. He was pretty good at hiding his emotions, not giving in to urges and just general self-control. But he had accepted long ago that how he felt for Keith wasn’t something he could control. He was weak, and Keith was just too pretty, and in this case, too willing. So Lance, who was filled with an unusual amount of bravery, gave in. 

"There's this... thing. It's stupid." It wasn’t stupid. Not for him. It was actually quite important, and he was somewhat in disbelief he was about to share this with someone else. But he also understood that not everyone would find it important, so he made a point to explain it to Keith. Of course Keith had other plans.

"It's not. Stop calling yourself stupid. Tell me."

Here goes nothing.

"My mom... She was obsessed with contact. She always had to be touching people." A habit he had clearly inherited. He didn’t say it out loud, but he didn’t need to, because Keith looked down at their interlocked hands and snorted before saying it for him.

"I can see where you got it from..."

"Anyway, she used to... just... press her forehead against ours. She'd do it constantly, I hated it. We all did. But now..." But now things are different, is what he meant to say. Things were different than they were a week ago, a day ago, even a minute ago. So much had changed beneath the surface in so little time and Lance thought that maybe that was the reason he even had the courage to say this out loud. 

"You miss it." Keith said, completing Lance’s sentence for him. Lance nodded.

"Yeah."

So there it was, laid down in the open. Lance was shocked to find he wasn’t nervous, or scared, for once. He was just giddy. Excited. He felt really dumb. 

"Okay." Keith said, just as Lance expected he would. It seemed like there should have been some kind of build up to it, but Keith wasn’t the kind of person who waited around before doing things, so he just adjusted his position and gently placed his free hand on Lance’s cheek. Lance’s breath caught a little, but he just closed his eyes and let Keith press their foreheads together.   
To anyone else, it might not have seemed like much, but to Lance, it was like his earlier giddiness multiplied by tenfold. He let out a shaky breath, overwhelmed by the feelings, and then just sat there, their foreheads pressed together, their eyes closed and Keith’s hand still placed over Lance’s cheek.

After a while, they separated, and though Lance immediately missed the contact, the contentment that had settled over him was enough to make him feel like it was okay. 

"Thanks." 

Lance said, because he needed to say something to convey what he was feeling, but words escaped him.

"Anytime."

Keith said, because he wasn’t really someone who needed many words. 

The silence returned after that, but Lance found that he didn’t mind it as much. He thought that perhaps the scary things in life were only scary because you had to face them alone. And maybe… Maybe he wasn’t anymore. He was still terrified, and confused. He didn’t think he’d ever stop being either of those things, but he had already gotten this far. If he had managed to get this close to Keith and not burn himself, maybe everything else wasn’t as far as he thought. 

It was with those thoughts running through his mind that he found the courage to speak again. This time, not to keep the silence at bay, but to fill it.

"I don't think I can... tell you. What's wrong. Not all of it. Not right now."

He wanted to. He wanted nothing more but to give Keith everything he had to offer, but he still felt the darkness lurking inside of him, and as hopeful as he felt in that moment, some part of him kept trying to convince him that it was all a terrible idea. That he’d end up in flames and bring Keith down with him.

Keith didn’t seem to be plagued by the same kind of thoughts, because he only shrugged, brushing his thumb against Lance’s skin in a comforting motion. It was just like Keith to ignore the risks, no matter what they were, and Lance found that he was thankful for his nature. 

"That's fine. You can take all the time you want. I'm not going anywhere."

Those words made Lance stop. It wasn’t that he stopped moving -he hadn’t been moving much in the first place- but that a stillness took hold of his soul. He would have sworn his heart stopped beating for a few seconds, if someone had asked him. No one did, though, so he found himself faced with a variety of questions. Do you mean that? Are you sure? Is that something you want? He also found himself faced with a variety of thoughts, ranging from You don’t know what you’re saying to I’m not good enough for you. Lance chose to ignore them all, however, because he knew where they would lead, and he really only needed to ask one question.

"You promise?" The question took Keith by surprise, and he turned to look at Lance with confused eyes. 

"What?"

"That you won't go anywhere? Even...” Even if the war kills us both. Even if we fight. Even if you find someone better, which you will. “...No matter what happens?"

Lance looked down again, because he didn’t want to see the doubt in Keith’s eyes. He knew it was selfish to ask that of someone, even if he hadn’t specified what he meant. He knew asking for support and devotion in spite of everything, without any guarantees was too much. And that asking for that reassurance and expecting the other person to reply without hesitance was just madness. He still wanted it, though.

Thankfully, Keith had a way of always knowing what Lance needed.

"I promise."

Lance looked back at Keith again, surprise clear in his face, to find Keith looking back at him, a tiny smile on his lips and his eyes full of… something. Lance preferred not giving it a name, not yet. If he did, it’d become real, and he had had enough reality for one night. He felt his face grow hot and looked away, basking in the feeling. A smile formed on his lips, and he didn’t try to suppress it.

**Author's Note:**

> So, that was something. This was created entirely out of some kind of pull that just made me keep putting feelings into paper. No planning. So I hope it makes some kind of sense to all of you!
> 
> And I hope you like it! Please do tell me if you do, because I'm a sucker for praise.
> 
> See y'all next time, have a wonderful life!


End file.
